During my undergrad I took a course in Social Work that focused on theories and different theoretical frameworks that are found within the social work field. Once I moved over to the field of Youth Development I found that many of those frameworks and theories also applied here. One of the theories that I kept returning to during my research was Dr. Murray Bowen's Family Systems Theory (Bowen, 1991). The recourse I used most when learning about Dr. Bowen was the book: Family Therapy Concepts and Methods by Michael P. Nichols. This is a great resource because Nichols writes about multiple different methods and approaches that can be used when working with children and families (Nichols, 1984).
Dr. Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory (Bowen, 1990) is a theoretical framework for the study of child life therapy. Family systems theory “provides a comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding how emotional ties within families of origin influence the lives of individuals in ways they often fail to appreciate and may tend to minimize” (Walsh, 2006, p. 90). The main reason this theory is applicable is that child life specialists aim to provide care, emotional supports, and knowledge about diseases or treatments to children that are seeking medical treatment from medical professionals. Child life specialists also work with the families of patients to provide resources, give information, and be an advocate for their child.
The best and most memorable way this theory was explained to me was: when one member of a family is sick, the entire family is sick. This is one of the fundamental concepts of Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory. With this concept being such a large factor in Bowen's theory, I believe that the Family Systems Theory can be classified as an asset model. I argue this because if one member of the family is sick and thusly the entire family is sick, the family as a whole unit needs to work to become healthy again. Consequently the family is navigating the health issue together as a unit (Bowen, 1990).
Bowen understood that relationships are a way of life and something that every person has in common; the first and a fundamental relation being that of the family. Dr. Bowen created the theory in the late 1950s when he conceived that a family is an entire unit and thus should be treated as such. Dr. Bowen was a psychiatrist with a scholarly focus on schizophrenia. With his background in mental health disorders, he was able to look at all aspects of the family and their health, and look at how they correlate (Kerr, 2000).
References:
Hewitt, G. (2020, October 17). Bowen Family Systems Theory. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GK7LaT5rxY
Joseph, W. (2006). Theories for Direct Social Work Practice (2nd ed). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
Kerr, M. E. (2000). One Family's Story: A Primer on Bowen Theory. http://www.thebowencenter.org
Nichols, M. P., & Schwartz, R. C. (1984). Family therapy: Concepts and methods. New York, NY: Gardner Press.
Check the APA guide for how to do in text citations and the bibliography. This is a good post to work with APA on.
ReplyDeleteYou still need to work on APA format here -- the Nicols text looks ok. The other citations are not in the correct format. We can take a look at this together if that would be helpful.
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